The College of Education announces the final Dissertation of

Chantal Taylor

for the degree of Doctor of Education

November 10, 2017 at 10:00 am in Ball Hall 123

Major Advisor: Charisse Gulosino, EdD

Examining Teachers’ Perceptions of Climate in the Areas of Teachers’ Use of Time, Resources, and the Quality of Participation at Schools with Very Low and Very High Percentages of Learning Disabled Populations

ABSTRACT: The purpose of this study was to determine whether there are differences in how educators view the use of instructional time, the availability of instructional resources, and the quality of parent/community relations at schools with very low and very high percentages of students categorized as learning disabled (LD). Secondary data extracted from the 2013 administration of the Teaching, Empowering, Leading and Learning Questionnaire (TELL) were merged with pertinent school demographic information archived on the Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) website. Once combined, these data were subsequently used to identify some 1425 schools with complete information on all variables of interest, including concurrent percentages of LD students. Analysis of the frequency distribution of these 1425 percentages enabled the location of the cut-points marking the lowest and highest deciles and the subsequent categorization of “very low” schools as those with proportions of LD students at or below 9.38% (n = 143) and “very high” schools as those with proportions of LD students or above 20.91% (n = 142). For these 285 schools, means were then obtained on the TELL subsections pertinent to instructional time (seven items), instructional resources (nine items), and parent/community relations (eight items). After controlling for the effects of two covariates, multivariate differences were observed apropos all three outcomes. With respect to time, five of seven item means favored “low” LD schools. Conversely, eight of the nine item means concerning resources favored the “high” LD schools. The most consistent and largest between-group differences were observed with respect to parent/community relations, however, Of the nine means in this set of items, all but one favored the “high” LD group, with the strongest effects observed for item comparisons involving clear, two-way communication (g = .59) and providing parents/guardians with useful information about student learning (g = .59).